The Red Hat by John Bayley

If Oscar Wilde were alive and well and writing in the 1990s, The Red Hat, by renowned critic John Bayley, is precisely the kind of playful, coyly erotic work of fiction he would have written.

Set in Holland and in Provence, the first part of this elegant literary jaunt follows a trio of young Vermeer aficionados as they set forth for the Hague to see a Vermeer exhibition. What begins as a simple journey turns quickly into a cheerfully tortuous race against time when the group unwittingly—and mistakenly—becomes enmeshed in an international terrorist ring.

The second part of the novel is narrated by Roland, a young man who has read the first narrator's account of the fiascos in the Hague. Setting off incognito, refusing to believe the account true, Roland searches for the original narrator, whom he expects to find living a lonely existence in a world of make-believe. As he conducts his search and the two parts begin to play off one another, The Red...